Wel­come to Oc­to­ber

The results of our an­nual Good Food Na­tion Sur­vey* show that our ap­petite for com­fort food never ends. We still love retro clas­sics like rice pud­ding and tri­fle, but what we de­fine as ‘com­fort food’ is chang­ing. While fish pie and mac­a­roni cheese will al­ways have a special place in our hearts, now we’re as likely to turn to a bowl of fra­grant ra­men when we want some­thing warm and re­as­sur­ing. Tak­ing it to the next level, in­no­va­tive UK chefs are creat­ing new glob­ally in­spired com­fort dishes – New­cas­tle’s The Pa­tri­cia, for ex­am­ple, uses epoisses and pre­served cher­ries to cre­ate a grown-up cheese toastie, and there’s a hint of nos­tal­gia – a big fac­tor in com­fort food – in Sprout’s Hob­nobs cheese­cake. We’ve high­lighted 31 of these new-wave com­fort foods on page 76. Plus, we’ve reimag­ined six clas­sic pud­dings: trea­cle tart with a boozy kick of IPA, and choco­late roly-poly. If you make any of our recipes, we’d love to see them on In­sta­gram – tag #bbc­good­food and we’ll share the best.

See you next is­sue to get ahead for Christ­mas (it comes with a free 2018 cal­en­dar), on sale 26 Oc­to­ber.